"The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference."
~ Elie Wiesel

Friday, August 21, 2009

Drown Us In Persuasion

This week, we've got Roman philosopher-poet Titus Lucretius Carus (known also just as Lucretius). I'm not sure if I've posted any poetry older than this. He died around 50 B.C.

Here's one of the most "wow!" requests for peace I've ever read. from The Way Things Areby Titus Lucretius Carus, translated by Rolfe Humphries

In this piece, Lucretius is writing to the goddess Venus:

Your blessing has endowed with excellenceAll ways, and always. Therefore, all the more,Give to our book a radiance, a grace, Brightness and candor; over land and sea,Meanwhile, to soldiery's fierce duty bringA slumber, an implacable repose -- Since you alone can help with tranquil peaceThe human race, and Mars, the governorOf war's fierce duty, more than once has come,Gentled by love's eternal wound, to you,Forgetful of his office, head bent back,No more the roughneck, gazing up at you,Gazing and gaping, all agog for love,His every breath dependent on your lips. Ah, goddess, pour yourself around him, bendWith all your body's holiness, aboveHis supine meekness, drown him in persuasion,Imploring, for the Romans, blessed peace.

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In another section, Lucretius vividly describes the seasons:Autumn is one season when the starry hallsOf heaven are shaken, like our world below,And blossoming spring is such another time. Not winter, though, when the fires fail, and windBlows cold, and the clouds are meager and mean. HalfwayBetween the winter and the summertimeWe find, in combination, every causeOf lightning and of thunder. Heat and coldMingle and clash, things are discordant, airSeethes in a turbulence of thermal winds,And all of this is needed for the clouds To manufacture thunderbolts. Heat's headDevour's cold's tail; there's spring for you, a timeOf warfare and confusion, bound to brawls.The same in autumn, turned the other way,Winter's raw vanguard chopping at the rearOf summer's ragged veterans. Call such timesThe foul rifts of the year, and do not beSurprised if many and many a thunderbolt Is then hurled loose, if skies are dark with storm,If winds and rain are allies against fireIn wars of which no augur knows the end.

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He explains how porous the world is:

...once againI hammer home this axiom: everythingPerceived by sense is matter mixed with void. Rocks drip with moisture in caves, and sweat breaks outAll over our bodies. We grow beards, have hair --No only on our faces. All our food,Distributed through the bloodstream, nourishes, Brings growth to even our toe-nails. We can feelBoth cold and heat pass through a bowl of bronzeOr cups of gold and silver at banquet time.And voices penetrate through walls of stone,As odors trickle through, and heat and coldAnd fire can force a passageway through iron.Even the chain mail armament of sky Is penetrable; through its chinks there comeDiseases from a world beyond, and stormsIn earth or sky engendered make their wayTo sky or earth, reciprocal; whereforeWe say once more, How porous things are!

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One last bit:

Also, as years go through their revolutionsA ring wears thin under the finger's touch, The drop of water hollows the stone, the ploughWith its curving iron slowly wastes awayIn the field it works; the footsteps of the peopleWe see wear out the paving-stones of rockIn the city streets, and at the city gatesBronze statues show their right hands, thinner and thinnerFrom the touch of passers-by, through years of greeting.We see these things worn down, diminished, onlyAfter long lapse of time; nature denies usThe sight we need for any given moment.

...

When tiny salt eats into great sea cliffs,You cannot see the process of the lossAt any given moment. Nature's workIs done by means of particles unseen. ...